


I Lie Awake And Watch It All

by swnamii



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, I Tried, Post-Episode: s09e10 Face The Raven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:00:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swnamii/pseuds/swnamii
Summary: "From the moment Clara reveals she's taken the chronolock from him, Rigsy feels like he isn't quite part of this story anymore."Aka a brief history of What Happens to Rigsy After "Face The Raven". This is my first published fic so apologies if it's awful :)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	I Lie Awake And Watch It All

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a character-study type thing but went off the rails a bit towards the end but some of it is vaguely okay so I'm posting it anyway lmao
> 
> Title from "Thousand Eyes" by Of Monsters And Men.

From the moment Clara reveals she's taken the chronolock from him, Rigsy feels like he isn't quite part of this story anymore. Almost as if his part has been played, and he's now a bystander like the rest of the people on the Street, watching nervously to see what happens next. Somehow, he recognises that this day is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. 

He watches as the Doctor gets angry, as Me gets afraid, and as Clara stays painfully calm in the midst of it all, the shouting and the tears and the arguments all getting lost in a haze. He watches as Clara dies, her whispers of "Let me be brave" and screams echoing in his ears for what feels like hours. He watches as the Doctor leaves, too, and he is left alone to make the long way home. 

Arriving back and seeing Jen and Lucy, he tries his best to pretend nothing's wrong. It's the best he can do. Like Clara had said, he has a daughter to look after. A family. 

*

Several days later, he finds himself wandering the streets again, looking for something. He sees the TARDIS. Parked in the same place it had been before... He shakes his head, trying to ignore the memories flooding back so soon, a fresh wave of grief for someone he realises he barely knew. Checking no one is looking, he pushes on the doors. They don't move. He resolves to come back, to do something. 

*

He does. The next day, he returns, bag filled with spray cans, and he paints a mural. To Clara. He covers the TARDIS doors in twisting, winding flowers, and smiles as he remembers the first time they'd met. The murals then had been aliens, not paint. The TARDIS had been a lot smaller. He'd been in Bristol, not London. As he walks away, job completed, he reflects on just how much has changed. 

*

Time passes. First days, then weeks, then months. Rigsy tries his best to get on with his life, but every now and then he remembers. The screams that echo in his ears. The fear and anger in the faces that surround him in his dreams. 

Sometimes, too, he notices something that reminds him. He's seen Mayor Me several times since that day, although he's fairly sure she's never noticed him. He wonders if she still lives on the Street, if all the aliens there are still going about their daily lives unknown to the huge city around them. 

One time, he's sure he sees her with Clara. For a moment, he doesn't believe it, but on closer inspection, it's definitely her. Rigsy supposes this is just Clara before she died, on one of her travels through time with the Doctor. The Doctor isn't there, but he guesses the older man is probably in the area somewhere. He looks at Clara and Me for a while, unable to tear his gaze away. He wonders how Me deals with it, knowing what happens and being unable to say anything. He wonders how he deals with it. 

The guilt is always there, after all. 

The Doctor is someone he sees much less often, but when he does, the same feelings of guilt and grief wash over him. Almost every time he spots the Doctor in a crowd, he's alone, and Rigsy remembers just how much that man must have lost. He never approaches him; he feels, deep down, as if Clara's death is somehow his fault, like if he had never agreed to her taking the chronolock nothing would have gone wrong. Fear of the Doctor feeling the same keeps him away. He doesn't want to add to someone else's hurt too. 

*

It takes about five instances of seeing the Doctor for Rigsy to pick up the connotations. The TARDIS had been left behind - the Doctor hadn't used it to leave the Street. But he was appearing in the city now, so he must have got it back. Be using it. 

He rushes down to the place it had been left, where he had sprayed on that mural what seems like years ago. The TARDIS is gone. A weight lifts from his chest; something from that day has been righted at least. The TARDIS, that beautiful blue box, has been freed. 

*

The guilt doesn't leave, however. He wonders if it ever will. Accepts that it probably won't. Carries on living his life, attempting to enjoy it as much as he can. 

He couldn't say he's truly recovered. He knows things have got better - he thinks about that day less now, refuses to let himself dwell on what could have been if he'd done something differently. But he knows its always going to be a part of him, whether he likes it or not. 

*

And then, one day, he runs into her. 

Clara. 

Except, Rigsy notes, she doesn't seem surprised to see him. In fact, she's smiling at him like she's had this meeting all planned out. He can't really tell if that's true or not, but the air of calm and confidence she has indicates the former. The presence of Me by her side also points to something other than just fate. 

"I-" he starts, the words getting caught in his throat as he realises he doesn't know what to say. How do you apologise to someone whose death you're partially responsible for? 

Clara sighs, and smiles sadly. 

"I know. I died." 

Rigsy wonders, briefly, if he's died and gone to some kind of afterlife. She seems far too relaxed about it all to be in a mortal plane. Plus, he notes, she's, well, dead. He saw it. He's spent nearly two years thinking about it. She clearly knows it too. 

"How?" is the only coherent response he can form. 

"It's complicated," Clara hums, "And I don't have the time to explain it. But I wanted you to know it wasn't your fault." 

He freezes, any further questions gone. Clara gives him that strange, sad smile again, before turning to leave. 

"Wait-"

But she's gone, disappeared into the stream of people traversing the street ahead. Rigsy doesn't try to follow. 

*

Billions of years later, on a planet hidden from the rest of the universe, a young woman prepares to step back into the moment of her death, strangely at peace. That moment, so long ago for her now, haunts her less and less, as she makes her way back towards the Street. 

In the present, a young man walks home, guilt he's been harbouring for almost two years finally beginning to subside. That moment, one that still follows him in his dreams, haunts him less and less, as he takes more and more steps along the pavement.


End file.
